Comer on fire as the Tribesmen wear down Derry rivals

Galway 2-8

Derry 1-6

THE good teams nearly always find a way. After their free-wheeling All-Ireland quarter-final victory over Armagh, Galway footballers have followed up by exhibiting the kind of pragmatism that potential All-Ireland champions must have in their armoury.

Make no mistake, this low-scoring All-Ireland semi-final at Croke Park on Saturday evening was the supreme test of Galway’s resolve and patience, but Padraic Joyce’s troops never panicked or got frustrated by a contest which was almost alien to the county’s traditional footballing values.

Heavens knows, you’d have been extremely doubtful about the Tribesmen reaching the sport’s showpiece occasion for the first time in two decades when they hadn’t managed a solitary score after 21 minutes of what was proving a turgid encounter, especially for neutrals in the crowd of near 69,000.

Galway just weren’t at the pitch of the battle, and they were also surprisingly passive against a Derry team whose systemic approach of defending in big numbers and trying to hit on the counter-attack gave the Ulster champions the early momentum.

Someone needed to stand up and spark Galway into life and, right on cue, Damien Comer made a crucial statement of intent: putting the head down, breaking through a mass of bodies to register his team’s first score. Comer went to become the semi-final’s most influential figure, scoring all but six points of the team’s admittedly modest haul of 2-8.

With centre back John Daly also emerging as pivotal in helping to dismantle the Derry defensive wall – they often had 15 players inside their own ’45, never mind their own half – Galway managed to survive a sterile opening-half of pedestrian and negative football on an evening when Hawkeye was shown not to be bombproof, together with confirmation that goalkeepers tearing up the field comes with a huge risk.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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